Pay-as-you-go or pay-per-use business models have been used in many areas of commerce, from cellular telephones to commercial laundromats. In developing a pay-as-you go business, a provider, for example, a cellular telephone provider, offers the use of hardware (a cellular telephone) at a lower-than-market cost in exchange for a commitment to remain a subscriber to their network. In this specific example, the customer receives a cellular phone for little or no money in exchange for signing a contract to become a subscriber for a given period of time. Over the course of the contract, the service provider recovers the cost of the hardware by charging the consumer for using the cellular phone. Similarly, pre-paid cellular telephones are offered to users assuming usage on the cellular network.
In a network-based business, such as cellular telephones, the service provider has some level of assurance that the cellular device will remain connected to its cellular network because otherwise, the subscriber will lose access to service.
However, when providing computers in a pay-per-use or pay-as-you go business model, it is important that the computer remain linked to the correct service provider throughout the contract period but, unlike the cellular telephone, the computer may operate without ties to a network or the associated service provider so close monitoring of the status of the computer may not be possible.